Dear Forever in Delusion,

What should you do? The short answer is ‘Grow up’. Unlike your friends, I don’t think you have a problem. I know it. And your problem is not being ‘forever in love’. Serial love-in-love-wallies are not an endangered or endangering species; they are all over the place, mooning around and boring anyone within earshot with their exaggerated notions of their emotions. Your problem is infatuation, and, as in most such cases, it is with guys much older and certainly unable to share your feelings. If they did, they’d be arrested.

Do these fellows a favour, will you? Don’t get them into trouble with your childish obsessions. Just look at the line up. Your father’s best friend – and that at 10. A teacher at 15 is also unacceptable, but okay, not uncommon. Then at 18, by which time you should have grown out of these fantasies and been into natural relationships with boys your own age, you latched on to the poor surgeon. Did he remove your brain along with your appendix?

Now it’s the English professor who you probably imagine is addressing all those Shakespearean love sonnets only to you when he recites them in class. You are 23, woman, not 13! Even at this age, it’s no big crime to be ‘fleetingly in love with different men’. Perhaps you feel this way only because the past objects of your desire have been completely wrong and unrealistic. When you find someone attractive from your own age group, you will want to be in love with just this ‘one man’.

But, going by your record, don’t count on this automatic turnaround. Take corrective action before you turn into a chronic emotional
butterfly. And a pest at that! The remedy, Mr & Mrs Parents, is not strapping you down to some husband who doesn’t know what he’s going to be saddled with. Mom, Dad and Wayward Daughter, all first have to accept that there is a problem. It’s probably only a case of low self-esteem, nothing that confidence-building, counseling, and learning to be comfortable with men closer to your own age can’t cure. But, for starters, stop announcing your emotional immaturity to the world as if it were some grand specialty. Or you will be branded as a weirdo, and no decent guy will come anywhere near you.

Dear Auntyji,

I have just broken up with my wife after several years of marriage and plan to go to India to find my roots. I feel that I need to escape the UK as I am tired of living under the shadow of my older former wife who has a very successful career in the media. Do you think I will find myself in India?

Naveen, Camden

Dear Naveen,

How horrible it must be living in your former wife’s shadow, you obviously suffered a lot living the high life while your more successful and richer wife supported you over the years. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have a deep rooted inferiority complex for many years to come.

I know many people reading this would say that serves you right for marrying older, foreign women, but I wouldn’t dare suggest that for a moment.

But you need to ask yourself whether you honestly think you will find yourself in India? You haven’t managed it in here, so how do expect to in a land which is foreign to you? It really looks like you are running away from your failures. I would suggest that you save the airfare and move to Southall, if you really want to get in touch with your roots!!!
desi eye july 2008.indd 16 02/07/2008 14:56:58